Not being too young and getting paid more than most players on a rebuilding team means Brandon Bass isn’t going to be staying for long. The Boston Celtics have been looking to pull off a trade involving the player for quite some time, and there has been interest in his direction from the Dallas Mavericks, Sacramento Kings and Charlotte Hornets.

Teams don’t like to admit that they’re tanking, so they call it rebuilding or going through a transitional phase. The Celtics are in that kind of period, with no end in sight. The target? Getting younger, improving their salary cap situation and waiting for the right opportunity to come along, through the draft or free agency.

In these long term plans, Brandon Bass doesn’t have a place. Not even in the short term plans. The Celtics have quite a lot of big men, including Kelly Olynyk, Jared Sullinger, Tyler Zeller and Vitor Faverani. Although none of them are quite impressive so far in what they’ve done on the court, it’s more likely that these guys will be getting the minutes and not Bass himself.

A nine-year veteran, Bass is making $6.9 million on the final year of his contract. In today’s NBA, that seems to be about either going for it all or trying to aim for the bottom, a “regular” player like Bass, a power forward with a soft touch from mid range and not a lot of defense who averages 11.1 points and 5.7 rebounds in 27 minutes a night isn’t really a popular item.

This has been Bass for most of his career, playing for the Hornets, Mavericks, Magic and the Celtics for the last three years. A decent-to-good power forward, usually in the starting lineup, but never one that actually gives a team a special kind of edge.

At his salary, there isn’t too much interest for him, but Bass isn’t going to be getting a lot of minutes for the Celtics, and will likely push to play on a different team, one that might be aiming a bit higher next season, which also means going with more veterans than developmental projects, giving Bass a better chance of putting on a good enough contract-season to position himself for a multiyear deal when he hits free agency in 2015.

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